Reputed underworld figure Robert (Fat Bobby) Paduano, accused of trying to take over the Newport Beach drug trade, pleaded guilty Monday to 43 felony counts of residential robberies, extortion, conspiracy to sell cocaine and false imprisonment. As part of an agreement with county prosecutors, Paduano was sentenced to eight years in state prison. Paduano's guilty plea came after a lively and unusual exchange between the defendant and Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans.

SAN FRANCISCO - State Sen. Leland Yee, a prominent figure in California's Democratic legislative majority, was arrested in a federal corruption investigation Wednesday along with an ostentatious gangster known as "Shrimp Boy" - who insisted that he had gone straight - and two dozen of their alleged associates. An affidavit filed in federal court in San Francisco by FBI Special Agent Emmanuel V. Pascua said there was probable cause to believe that Yee had conducted wire fraud and had engaged in a conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and illegally import firearms.

The mob-style rub-out of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel 50 years ago today at the Beverly Hills mansion of his street-wise, auburn-haired mistress has endured as one of Los Angeles' most romanticized murder mysteries.

California has emerged as the major gateway for methamphetamine into the country, with Mexican organized crime groups smuggling an estimated 70% of the U.S. supply through state border crossings, according to a report released Thursday by state Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris. The 98-page report on trends in transnational organized crime also cites maritime smuggling, money laundering and criminal alliances between Mexican drug cartels and Southern California gangs as growing public safety threats.

An NBC attorney attempted Friday to persuade federal appeals court judges in Pasadena to strike down the largest libel verdict against an American news organization--a $5.3-million judgment that the network defamed singer Wayne Newton in newscasts that linked him to organized crime figures. NBC lawyer Floyd Abrams said the stories were the product of aggressive reporting, not ill will, and should be protected by the First Amendment. But Newton's lawyer, Morton R.

A defense attorney in the Mexican Mafia case asked Tuesday for a mistrial after another defense attorney said her client should not have been charged because the other defendants talked about killing him and his mother.

Jurors have begun hearing testimony in the first in a series of trials that federal prosecutors say should be the coup de grace to an organization that once had seemed all but unstoppable. For a quarter of a century, the El Rukn Nation, under one name or another, has ruled large swaths of Chicago's South Side through violence and intimidation.

On the Home Shopping Network, the story lines are as thin as an overworked credit card. About the only drama unfolding amid the endless parade of cut-rate merchandise offered to cable television viewers is whether perky hostess Erin Morrissey's enthusiasm will give out before the supply of pink cubic zirconia bracelets at $29.75 each. But from behind the scenes of the $1-billion-a-year merchant-of-the-air have come details of a continuing drama that sounds improbable even by TV movie standards.

Ever since Al Capone bought a mansion on Miami's Palm Island in 1928, South Florida has been a destination for organized-crime figures who want to relax and do a little business. The rackets have evolved over the years -- loan-sharking, extortion and gambling have largely given way to stock scams, money-laundering and white-collar fraud. And the gangsters of yore have been joined by rivals from Russia, Israel and South America. But the culture of greed and violence has remained constant.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered a crackdown on organized crime in Israel, signaling a new focus on domestic issues while he prepares to seek reelection to office as head of the new Kadima party. Crime has risen in Israel in recent years, with gangs involved in illegal gambling and trafficking in drugs and sex workers. Meanwhile, Sharon's aides said he would undergo a heart procedure Thursday to mend a small hole that apparently led to his recent stroke.

There is at least one thing that John “Junior” Gotti, scion of the mobster family, and Oscar Wilde, the playwright known for his ironic bent, have in common. They know that no good deed goes unpunished. The aphorism is generally attributed to the acerbic writer and wit. Gotti, the son of the man who became notorious as the Teflon Don of organized crime because criminal charges slid off him like a fried egg on a properly coated skillet, learned of its truth during a weekend incident during which he was stabbed while reportedly trying to break up an altercation in a parking lot on Long Island.

After 10 years of death-dealing, scorched-earth cartel warfare and twice the total body count of U.S. forces in Vietnam, it's high time an American audience found out just what is happening down south of the Rio Grande. No single recent work on the subject peers more deeply than Anabel Hernández's "Narcoland," an investigative magnum opus by a Mexican journalist driven by purpose verging on despair. Empirically devastating, Hernández's book delves into the rusty filing cabinets of cold cases, shelved for making the people in power uncomfortable.

MEXICO CITY -- President Obama and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto assured each other in a private meeting Thursday that they are committed to reducing violence and fighting organized crime. But the conversations are only just beginning between the two over how to work together on shared security interests. Both sides are concerned about drug and weapons trafficking across the border, but some U.S. officials worry that the new Mexican government isn't as interested in coordinating with American law enforcement as was the last president.

MEXICO CITY - Operation Cleanup was a showcase effort to stamp out corruption within Mexico's elite organized-crime bureau. Twenty-five top law-enforcement officials were arrested in the weeks after the operation was launched in 2008, most accused of acting as highly paid moles for a leading drug cartel, the very villains the officials were supposed to be chasing. Today, the cases against them are a shambles, yet another example of Mexico's systemic corruption and a weak judiciary unable to fix it. The operation is also the most high-profile prosecution among the many that fell apart under the government of President Felipe Calderon, which ended nearly five months ago. This week, a federal judge freed the highest-ranking of those ensnared by Operation Cleanup.

A former Mexican liaison officer who worked closely with U.S. law enforcement was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to passing on sensitive information to organized crime members in Tijuana, federal authorities said. Jesus Quiñonez Marquez, 51, the former top liaison official for the Baja California attorney general's office, was arrested in 2010 as part of a wide-ranging investigation targeting the remnants of the Arellano Felix drug cartel. Quiñonez, in his plea agreement, admitted that he provided information to help crime bosses avoid arrest in a double homicide case in Tijuana.

MOSCOW - A senior Muslim cleric was killed and another seriously injured in what appeared to be coordinated attacks Thursday in centralRussia's Tatarstan republic. Valiulla Yakupov, the Islamic chief ideologue in the predominantly Muslim region, was shot by gunmen several times about 10 a.m. as he was leaving his home, officials said. The injured cleric managed to make his way to his car parked nearby, where he died, Eduard Abdullin, spokesman for the Tatarstan branch of the Russian Investigative Committee, said in televised remarks.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service said today organized criminal gangs that spill across the nation's borders are on the rise, trafficking in drugs and engaging in loan-sharking, gambling, extortion and murder-for-hire. Levels of criminal activity by groups ranging from the Japanese Yakuza to Jamaican crime networks "appear to be escalating dramatically," the INS concluded in a report.

The brown Mercedes without license plates slowed on a downtown street, and the driver called out to a teenage girl. "He pointed at me and said, 'You, come closer,' " recalled the 13-year-old ethnic Albanian. "I didn't go near but said, 'What do you want?' He said, 'Don't be a bad girl.' I said, 'What?' Then he rolled up the window and left." The incident here in Kosovo's capital lasted only a moment. But it was one that could strike fear into any parent's heart.

Los Angeles and Orange counties ranks among the top 10 locales nationwide plagued by organized retail crime, a survey finds. Organized crime has become increasingly sophisticated as groups of thieves -- sometimes organized into gangs -- hit up stores and make off with thousands of dollars in merchandise that is later returned or sold. According to the National Retail Federation's annual organized crime survey, the stagnating economy has exacerbated the problem -- in the last year, 96% of retailers said they were victims of organized crime, up from 94.5% in the previous year.

ROME - A bomb exploded at the entrance of a high school in southern Italy named for the wife of a slain anti-Mafia judge, killing a 16-year-old girl and injuring at least four people as students were arriving at school for Saturday classes. Police were investigating the possibility of organized-crime involvement in the attack in the Adriatic port city of Brindisi, but authorities said it was too early to exclude other possibilities. They noted that the school is named for Francesca Morvillo, the wife of anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone.